Damage Tolerance Analysis of Wing Fuselage Interface in BWB Aircraft Design

Abstract

Abstract As conventional aircraft manufactured based on tube and wing concept came to design saturation stage, aircraft industry is looking for totally new efficient configurations. In this regard the BWB (Blended Wing Body) configuration offers a paradigm shift in the aircraft design. This design provides aerodynamically efficient, low carbon emission environmentally friendly benefits and can adopt advanced technologies like laminar flow, jet flaps and distributed propulsion and ease of flight controls. However, despite these benefits, the BWB is yet to be produced for commercial use due to several challenges. To benefit the airline operators and optimize profit, both passenger and cargo options are suggested to make a multi-role version. This paper tried to bring out alternate proposition in BWB design highlighting design challenges that have hindered the actual production of a viable BWB passenger aircraft with multi-role cargo option. Even though the fully composite BWB concept is three decades old, it has not gone into production due to issues related to product quality and reliability of composite material apart from high costs in damage tolerance design which will be addressed in this paper.